There is an undeniable hunger for handmade products. As the discourse around animation becomes increasingly absorbed by numbing questions about artificial intelligence, it becomes clearer that people who care about the medium are striving for tactility and foregrounding real texture, materials imprinted with real human emotions. This is especially true of “The Magic Atlas,” which Sun
Produced by Pi Animation Studio in Singapore, the film is, in a way, about a coal empire called Luocha. This region, ruled by fascist, industrialist despots, is explored from the perspective of an orphaned boy named Xiao Zhi, who is given access to its secrets by an imprisoned wizard who has been imprisoned for giving the people some freedom, namely, the memories taken from them by this government. The plot, frankly, takes a backseat to “Magic Atlas,” which, despite a short runtime, is quite comfortable setting up Xiao Zhi’s story, opting instead to establish the mood of the piece with wavy, inky illustrations. (In fact, Xiao frequently disappears from the film shortly after appearing to question the state of the world he has been taught.)
The film’s appeal rests on one’s fondness for images and perhaps one’s patience with often incomprehensible, fragmentary, oddly paced storytelling. It opens with the Buddhist scripture Avatamsaka Sutra, which describes “the past, the present, the future lying in the present”, followed by a sequence consumed by waves in which painted creatures struggle. A narrator (voiced by the director) who claims to be “everywhere, without beginning or end” ponders his place in the universe as the tone of art shifts to old pages and backgrounds painted in black ink. Surreal hybrid animals (including a horse with a camera for its head) leap impossibly across the landscape, drawn in white lines on a black background.
And then the style changes again: blue water, a black whale, morph into more kaleidoscopic paintings that seem like homages to Pieter Bruegel. A strange mix of eras, symbols, gods and animals all united in one place; The invasiveness of the regime is immediately clear by how aggressively a factory emerges from the softer painted mountain landscape. The abstract electronic tones in the music create further dissonance in this surrealist fever dream as the scene and style change to meet the needs of the moment.
Sun’s piece revolves mostly around a monochrome palette of heavy, inky black shadows (outlined in white) and lots of line detail in the broad, impressionistic brushstrokes that characterize the landscape—at least sometimes. But it is never completely definitive or specific about any one style; It constantly breaks free from the oppressive obsidian lines that make up the authoritarian environment. The next scene may completely reverse this palette, with a burst of color and the adoption of a more “western” painting style, or a switch to pen and pencil on paper. Throughout, moving between scheming politicians in backrooms, foreboding factory lines, and a natural world that suffers from both, Xun combines an almost cartoonish expression with the intense detail of the picture.
Although “The Magic Atlas” touches on some impressively strange and bizarre concepts, such as a mass surveillance system of giant mosquitoes, it’s more intriguing for its appearance than for its match with its story. There is little ambiguity in this blend of folkloric imagery and science fiction: the Orwellian nature of the generals could not be more evident than in the moment when they tell a child they accuse of having “false memories,” “You have employed a criminally outdated way of thinking.” (Or rather, the memories the government allows people to have.) The blatant suppression of the truth is an easy topic to relate to, at least right now.
Accordingly, the film does not dedicate its appearance to just one idea. A message from the director towards the end explains that one of the standout scenes of the film was a reaction to the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic, realized with the international collaboration of artists. The sharpest ideas of “Magic Atlas” lie in the moments when it pits its malleable style against the idea of pacification by combining art and entertainment. (During the big festival, there is a man dressed in a mouse costume whose silhouette resembles Mickey Mouse, but this may be confirmation bias; take it as you will.)
It’s a difficult film to fully connect with emotionally, perhaps not because of its symbolism, but rather because of its fragmented nature; especially as the story becomes more metaphysical, even mocking the artificiality of the world it creates. Xun has previously said that he is not worried about whether everyone understands everything in the movie, which is a fair point of view. But the technical aspects of “The Magic Atlas” prevent it from feeling completely alienating; In fact, the film often approaches the divine.